Indifferent perfection
by EvilByNecessity
Summary: Sometimes she likes to pretend that she doesn't care about him. She walks around the guild and him just being there makes her stomach flutter, but she ignores him. Pretends that if she can ignore him, she'll be able to ignore the feeling of a desperate, growing, hopefulness.


Disclaimer: I don't own fairy tail. Because if I did Simon wouldn't be dead.

Cheers!

* * *

Sometimes, he likes to pretend she hates him. That when she thinks about him her lip curls up and her dark eyes narrow and flash in disgust, that her heart beats furiously with overpowering, embittering _hate._

But he's not fooling anyone – least of all himself.

She doesn't hate him at all.

She doesn't feel anything.

She is utterly indifferent.

And he knows, watching as her eyes slide past him, as though he doesn't even exist, that indifference is a thousand times worse than hate.

Indifference means she can't even be bothered to muster a feeling for him.

He's irrelevant to her.

He's _nothing._

* * *

Sometimes she likes to pretend that she doesn't care about him. She walks around the guild and him just being _there _makes her stomach flutter, but she ignores him. Pretends that if she can ignore him, she'll be able to ignore the feeling of a desperate, growing,_ hopefulness._

Buts she's not fooling anyone, especially not herself – because if she takes one look at those dangerously beautiful red eyes, the flawlessness of his rippling muscles, or endless story behind his permanent apathy, she knows she wouldn't be able to ignore perfection any longer.

She wonders if he even notices.

If he even cares...

* * *

Levy, Levy, Levy, Levy. He could spend an eternity mussing over her name. Whose idea was it anyway, to name her Levy? He thought maybe it was her mother, or possibly her father. It could have been her thirteenth cousin twice removed, or her mother's sister's pet turtle, and he would never know.

He wanted to know, oh how he _wanted _to know, if only he could sit with her and just talk and talk and talk. He wanted to know everything about her, every detail of everyday she lived. What made her smile and laugh, what she loved, what she loathed, why she always had her head burred in a book, what she did on rainy days. He wanted to know all her favorites so he could spend every day for the rest of his life making sure she had them and she was happy.

He tried to run from it, in his defense. He really did. Feelings weren't something he had experience dealing with and she didn't just make him just feel, she made him _need._ He pretended for a bit, not to care at all. He limited his time hanging around the guild in order to avoid her and sat with his back to her at the bar. He picked fights with Natsu just to distract himself when he heard her laughing because her laugh was so carefree and innocent that it often made his heart ache at the sound.

But he could never do it. He always found his way back to her just because she couldn't be ignored.

The thing was she wasn't just admirable – she was _brilliant, _she shined with a kind of iridescence that he could only compare with a million burning stars.

Perfection at its finest.

He wanted to be part of her glow.

He wanted to be the reason for her glow, her smile, her laugh, and maybe even her lingering eyes…

* * *

She wished she didn't care.

But no matter how hard she tried, she just _did._ She cared about every little thing, and it all made her love him fiercely.

Number one on that list was his eyes. The deep crimson that were so expressive they took her breath away. Sometimes when she was pretending not to stare, his eyes caught on hers and her heart would stop beating altogether. Catching those eyes was like catching a shooting star – fleeting, brilliant, and breathless.

Her breath caught every time.

She wondered, sometimes, why his name was Gajeel. Sure his exterior fit the harsh name oddly well but she thought there was just so much _more _than his rough outside. She would see one of his smirks or a sharp look he sent to one of the other Dragon slayers and her head would be sent spinning. The name was surprisingly perfect for someone like him, cunning, sharp, and beautiful with carelessly disguised gentleness lurking under a callous surface.

He was her paradox.

And she wanted to spend forever figuring him out.

* * *

He was knocked away by the idea - the sudden need to just walk up to her and tell her everything.

It thrummed through his chest and suddenly the world was spinning around him and all he could think was _yes, yes, yes by_ Mavis he needed to do it.

She was too beautiful to let go of, and he wasn't going to be played a fool. She wasn't about to become his biggest regret.

No.

He was going to tell her, indifference or not.

So what if she didn't care? He cared more than he wanted to even think about, and if she didn't care, then what was there to lose, really?

Truth was, she was his biggest love and his biggest fear.

Why?

Because she had his heart and she didn't even know it.

And it terrified him, because she could hold it in the palm of her hand and crush him with a single word.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea, he reflected with some chagrin, to put your every wish and desire in one person's possession, but if it had to let anyone hold all these fragile things he's glad it was her.

He was just afraid of what she would do to it.

* * *

_You have my heart_, she wanted to tell him_. Take care of it._

But it was stupid, really, to give someone your heart when they didn't even know it was theirs. It was stupid, really, to fall when no one would catch you. It was stupid, really, to attach your winged dreams to a person's back and expect them to carry them around make them fly when they didn't even know that they were there.

It was stupid, really, that she loved him so much when he couldn't be bothered.

She knew it was stupid, and that it was pointless and a thousand shades of immature and dumb… but she couldn't help it. No matter how hard she tried to pretend that she didn't love everything about him, the fact remained.

She did.

So she sat there and shot him longing glances when she knew she wouldn't get caught. Her heart beat every breath he took, and she drowned her overwhelming feelings and shaking hands and love.

And one day, she thought, maybe it might change and that someday he would smile just thinking about her. Right now it was okay to live in the dream of being in love with no restrictions except reality.

* * *

She was beautiful.

That's it, he knew, the thing that drove him to his desperate longing. She was beautiful, and vibrant, and striking and hundred million hues of perfect.

There's something about her –something so delicately effervescent - that drove him to her like light to the earth, like she had a sort of gravitational pull. She was the vibrant center, and everyone wanted to be around her and feel part of her glow. It was something he saw as weakness before, her weakness, her friend's weakness, and her guilds. But now he couldn't think of anything more extraordinary and wonderful. A gift.

There was something about her that shone so brightly, and it almost hurt to look at all that innocent beauty in one dose. You to do it in little steps; first the soft, sky-kissed hair that fell into her eyes though she wore a headband for that very reason, and then her mouth and her skin and finally… (Prepare for the breathless feeling in your lungs), finally her eyes.

Mavis, her eyes.

Of all the words in the English language - or the French language, or the German or Ancient Greek or Sanskrit or Swahili or any of the innumerable lost languages she was fluent in, for Mavis' sake - there were none to describe those eyes.

It was just… you needed to feel it, he decided.

There were no words for the feeling, but if you knew it was there.

And he smiled just thinking about her and her chocolate-brown-star-dusted-deep-endless-heart-stopping-war-starting-peaceful-perfect eyes.

* * *

He was leaving tomorrow, for a 10 year quest, and she's preparing herself for a life with no more Gajeel.

Honestly, she was quite terrified at the prospect, of being away from the one thing that made her happy all the time, of being unsure and out of the loop and not just with him but Lily too.

She wasn't quite sure what to do when all of her little dreams and shards of heart were with _him_- he had Levy McGarden, and she was just what was left of her shell.

Without Gajeel Redfox, there was no Levy McGarden.

It was sad how completely dependent she was on one person's existence.

She sighed and returned her gaze to the novel in front of her, the taste of bittersweet endings on her lips. His last hour at the guild, and she was still afraid of life and all its little pricks and thorns.

He's got to want this, there's nothing holding him here.

She sighed again wishing she was part of what incredible plans he had decided for himself.

Someone brushed her shoulder with the lightest touch an electric current ran through her entire body - she just knew, without even turning around, that was him.

Her heart raced in her chest and she turned around, like she was preparing herself for the punch of awe that hit her every time she saw his face.

She wasn't disappointed.

He left her breathless.

She opened her mouth - not know what she's going to say, really - but he shook his head to the side with an almost self-conscious smirk on his face and handed her folded piece of paper. She was frozen in place, shocked and over-sensitized and ready to explode in a million little shards of nerves.

And before she could collect all those little pieces, he turned around walked away. Her heart ached as she realized it was the end.

* * *

Hours later sitting her bedroom with moonlight filtering on her pillow, she opened the tiny note.

_You are my perfection._

She smiled.

Who was she fooling – there was no way she was going to let this be the end.

It was just the beginning.

* * *

Took another stab at a one-shot :) reviews/feedback please? love to know your thoughts fellow Gajevy shippers


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